Brother Cadfael 04: St. Peter's Fair

horse-fair should be on its way to bed by now, and he'll be needing his own sleep if he's to hunt the best bargains tomorrow, which is what I take it he's here for. What do you say, Hugh?"
    "A good thought," said Hugh. "Do it, and we'll make provision to look for Master Thomas, though I trust all's well with him, for all this delay. The eve of a fair," he said, smiling reassurance at the girl, "and there are contacts to be made, customers already looking over the ground ... A man can forget about his sleep with his mind on business."
    Brother Cadfael heard her sigh: "Oh, yes!" with genuine hope and gratitude, as he went to bid the porter intercept Ivo Corbiere when he came in. His errand could hardly have been better timed, for the man himself appeared in the gateway. The main gate was already closed, only the wicket stood open, and the dip of the gold head stepping through caught the light from the torch overhead, and burned like a minor sun. Bare-headed, with his cotte slung on one shoulder in the warm last night of July, Ivo Corbiere strolled towards his bed almost rebelliously, with a reserve of energy still unspent. The snowy linen shirt glowed in the lambent dark with a ghostly whiteness. He was whistling a street tune, more likely Parisian than out of London, by the cadence of it. He had certainly drunk reasonably deep, but not beyond his measure, nor even up to it. He was alert at a word.
    "What, you, brother? Out of bed before Matins?" Amiable though his soft laughter was, he checked it quickly, sensing something demanding gravity of him. "You were looking for me? Something worse fell out? Good God, the old man never killed the fool boy, did he?"
    "Nothing so dire," said Cadfael. "But there's one within here at the gatehouse came looking for you, with a question. You've been about the Foregate and the fairground all this time?"
    "The whole round," said Ivo, his attention sharpening. "I have a new and draughty manor to furnish in Cheshire. I'm looking for woollens and Flemish tapestries. Why?"
    "Have you seen, in your wanderings, Master Thomas of Bristol? At any time since you left his barge earlier this evening?"
    "I have not," said Ivo, wondering, and peered closely in the strange, soft light of midsummer, an hour short of midnight.
    "What is this? The man made it clear - he has practise, which is no marvel! - that his girl is to be seen only in his presence and with his sanction, and small blame to him, for she's gold, with or without his gold. I respected him for it, and I left. Why? What follows?"
    "Come and see," said Cadfael simply, and led the way within.
    The young man blinked in the sudden light, and opened his eyes wide upon Emma. It was a question which of them showed the more distracted. The girl rose, reaching eager hands and then half-withdrawing them. The man sprang forward solicitously to welcome the clasp.
    "Mistress Vernold! At this hour? Should you ..." He had a grasp of the company and the urgency by then. "What has happened?" he asked, and looked at Beringar.
    Briskly, Beringar told him. Cadfael was not greatly surprised to see that Corbiere was relieved rather than dismayed. Here was a young, inexperienced girl, growing nervous all too easily when she was left alone an hour or so too long, while no doubt her uncle, very travelled and experienced indeed, and well able to take care of himself, was in no sort of trouble at all, but merely engaged in a little social indulgence with a colleague, or busy assessing the goods and worldly state of some of his rivals.
    "Nothing ill will have happened to him," said Corbiere cheerfully, smiling reassurance at Emma, who remained, for all that, grave and anxious of eye. And she was no fool, Cadfael reflected, watching, and knew her uncle better than anyone else here could claim to know him. "You'll see, he'll come home in his own good time, and be astonished to find you so troubled for him."
    She wanted to believe it, but her eyes said she could not be sure. "I hoped he might have met you again," she said, "or that at least you might have seen him."
    "I wish it were so," he said. "It would have been my pleasure to set your mind at rest. But I have not seen him."
    "I think," said Beringar, "this lies now with me. I have still half a dozen men here within the walls, we'll make a search for Master Thomas. In the meantime, the hour is late, and you should not be wandering in the night. It will be best if your man here returns to the barge, while you,